Texas Architect July/Aug 2012: Healthcare & Wellness

In this edition about design for healthcare and wellness, we look at good buildings of both types. But the role of architects in public health goes far beyond their work on the hospitals, clinics, and fitness facilities routinely associated with these two categories. The broader purview includes their role in shaping more livable, sustainable, and healthy communities — the premise being that there is a direct correlation between the design of a community and the health of its people.

Editor’s Note
To Your Good Health
Thoughts on the role of architects in
shaping a healthy built environment
by Larry Paul Fuller
I
n this edition about design for healthcare
and wellness, we look at good buildings
of both types. But the role of architects in
public health goes far beyond their work
on the hospitals, clinics, and fitness facilities routinely associated with these two categories. The broader purview includes their role in
shaping more livable, sustainable, and healthy
communities — the premise being that there is a
direct correlation between the design of a community and the health of its people.
recreation. At least partly because of Jackson’s
campaigning, architects are also having a direct
influence on public health through a very simple
but effective design tactic: restoring stairs to their
traditional primary role (pre-elevator) by making
more ardent and articulate spokesman for this premise than Dr. Richard Jackson,
M.D., Professor and Chair of Environmental
Health Sciences at the UCLA School of Public
Health, and a former public member of the
AIA Board of Directors. In his four-hour PBS
series, Designing Healthy Communities, and the
companion book of the same name — as well as
in frequent lectures to relevant professional and
civic groups — Jackson makes his case. His most
compelling themes relate to the fact that American obesity is epidemic, and that this malady
raises the risk of heart disease, stroke, and an
epidemic of life-shortening diabetes. He further
observes, first, that nothing works better to
counter these epidemics than increased physical
activity. And, second, this key objective is aided
through urban design that favors such benefits
as safe and inviting routes for daily walking or
biking, and open spaces with clean air for active
them more prominent and more inviting.
But we shouldn’t forget the less direct impact
architects have on health as a composite of both
physical and mental conditions. Regardless of
the presence or absence of disease, daily living is
made better by the efficacy of good design. In his
review of the Hodge Orr House in Dallas (page
30), for example, Michael Malone, AIA, refers to
the “gift of well-being” that comes with experiencing the inspired design of the house. Indeed,
the built spaces we find most satisfying emerge
from design that transcends mere competence.
And in that regard, their buoyant effect on our
sense of well-being can be seen as a special gift.
Not exactly the gift of wellness, perhaps. But
pretty close.
There is no
Regardless of the presence or
absence of disease, daily living
is made better by the efficacy of
good design.
PHOTOS BY MICHAEL MORAN
The simple tactic of restoring stairs to a primary
(rather than secondary or
tertiary) role by making
them more prominent and
more inviting is one way
architects can encourage
physical activity. Case in
point: this grand-stairas-skylit-experience in
AMOA-Arthouse in Austin, by LTL Architects,
New York.
7/8 2012
Texas Architect 5